I was not at all surprised to see the headline this morning on yahoo that another large food producer is recalling over 300,000 lbs. of beef. Swift Company, a beef producer, here in Colorado has expanded the June 24th recall because of an E Coli outbreak. The reason I was not surprised to see this headline is that my husband, who was in Florida visiting his daughter and granddaughter, became very ill and thought he had food poisoning. He became sick on Friday, June 19th, and he is still not completely over the episode. Upon reading about the beef recall, I decided to do some research on food borne illnesses and outbreaks, and factory farming. What I have found out so far is really disturbing. I was really sickened by the list of meat products that are being recalled. I downloaded a list that was 104 pages long containing all the product that was made on one day. This is a lot of beef and a lot of killing.
For quite some time now, I have been growing more uncomfortable with the idea of factory farming of animals. I was raised on a ranch where my family made a living by raising beef, so for many years I have felt that killing animals for food was something that would always be a way of life here and that it would never change, but our modern day world has become so different than it was when I was growing up thirty years ago. Back then, the majority of animals raised for food came from family farms like the one I lived on, and the conditions in which the animals were raised were much better than today. People really viewed these animals as their investment, so at least they had a reasonably good life before they were hauled off to be slaughtered. Today, large corporations make up most of the producers, and we here stories all the time about the hideous abuse of animals and many groups have been fighting for years to change this dynamic.
While the abuse of animals is one side of this issue, the other side of the issue is the food borne illnesses that seem to be becoming more common. This should concern all of us enough that we need to be demanding that our lawmakers enact some tough standards to protect us from sickness. I realize that the total of all of these outbreaks affects a slim part of our population, and I have argued this point with many people, but I really feel that when you look at all sides of the issue maybe it is time to take a fresh approach.
I have a friend who has lived in Switzerland for many years now, and while talking with her about different issues I found out that in their country, people are really serious about their food supply. For example, Swiss law requires the food producer to list whether or not chickens are free raised or caged on the egg packages, and the name and address of the farm must be listed on the package as well. I recently read an article in the Denver Post about the Agricultural Department wanting to start a program here in the United States that would require farmers to tag their animals so that they could be tracked throughout the process. The Agricultural Department believes that this would aid in tracking down food borne illnesses more quickly. Naturally, most everyone is opposed to this because they argue that there would be too much government in people’s lives, and that it would be a nightmare to set up and that it would be way too expensive.
I really think that these are weak arguments when people can and do die from food borne illnesses. After watching my husband go through this, I really would not wish it on anyone else. Lets all get a little smarter about the food we eat and demand safer standards.
